Military Strategy Magazine - Volume 7, Issue 4

Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2022 13 fight a war away from US shores or another world so willing to accept US strategy and purpose. Clear context is not a military’s norm nor should it be a policymaker’s goal for a world in flux. Twenty-first century military strategy is about thinking fourth-dimensionally to appreciate an unclear and uncertain context. Future strategies must leverage this system complexity as a catalyst to create advantage. A capable strategist only needs a conceptual means to consider time, a contextual flux capacitor. The implication for Western militaries is to become more mindful of nation-state flux and the flow of history beyond the confines of an operation. In science fiction, the flux capacitor makes flow conceivable. In military strategy, understanding states of flux makes advantage imaginable. The Military Strategist’s Flux Capacitor Keith Nordquist References [i] John S. Brown, “The Maturation of Operational Art: Desert Shield and Desert Storm” in Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, ed. Michael D. Krause and R. Cody Phillips (Washington, DC: US Army Center for Military History, 2005, 439475), 473-475. [ii] William A. Reese, “The Principle of the Objective and Promoting National Interests: Desert Shield/Storm--A Case Study,” research monograph (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1993), 31-34. [iii] Joseph R. Biden, Jr., “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance” (Washington, DC: Office of the President of the United States, March 2021), 14. [iv] National Intelligence Council, Global Trends: Paradox of Progress (Washington, DC: Chairman, National Intelligence Council, 2017), ix-xi, 6. [v] Johan Verbeke, “A World in Flux,” Egmont Institute Security Policy Brief, no. 92 (30 November 2017), 1, 6-8. [vi] Robert Axelrod and Michael D. Cohen, Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 32-45. [vii] Biden, “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance,” 7, 17. [viii] Everett C. Dolman, Pure Strategy: Power and Principles in the Space and Information Age (New York: Routledge, 2005), 5-17. [ix] David G. Chandler, “Napoleon, Operational Art, and the Jena Campaign” in Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, ed. Michael D. Krause and R. Cody Phillips. (Washington, DC: US Army Center for Military History, 2005), 27-39. [x] Brett A. Leeds, “Do Alliances Deter Aggression?” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 47, no. 3 ( July, 2003), 427-439. [xi] Charles R. Bowery, Jr., The Civil War in the Western Theater, 1862 (Washington, DC: US Army Center for Military History, 2014), 30-33, 61-62, 70-71. [xii] Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1950-1951: They Came from the North (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 239-251. [xiii] US Army, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, The US Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Training and Doctrine Command, 6 December 2018), v-xii. [xiv] US War Department, Logistics in World War II: Final Report to the Army Service Forces (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1947), 244-252.

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